GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★☆ (3.8/5)
Rated: MA15+
Written and Directed by: Osgood Perkins
Produced by: Dave Caplan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Oddfellows, Dan Kagan
Director of Photography: Adrés Arochi
Starring: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alica Witt, Kiernan Shipka.
‘You’re a dirty sweet girl. You’re my girl.’
T. Rex 1971.
Longlegs is one of the creepier serial killer movies I’ve seen.
The film is created with odd camera angles, the texture of the film, stark.
There’s a quiet tone to the film as FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) makes her way through the case of a satanic serial killer, AKA Longlegs (Nicolas Cage): a killer who doesn’t leave a trace.
The only reason the FBI know about Longlegs is because he leaves a note. A cipher.
Agent Harker is able to decipher the notes because Longlegs breaks into her house and leaves her the solution to the code.
And then the dance between Longlegs and Harker begins.
The toneless affect of Harker blankets the film in a monotone, making the feeling flat. It’s a strange device but I get the connection to the life-sized dolls that are introduced later in the film; however, the dampening of Harker made her character borderline dull.
Aside from the flat affect, this is a carefully crafted film with thought put into the build, the montages of crime scene photos, the sometimes up-side-down perspective, the quiet then screech of strings, all to build that unnerving feeling.
Then add Nicolas Cage as Longlegs spouting the bizarre while looking directly into the camera so it’s like Longlegs is speaking directly to you as you watch the movie and you get one unique film that gets under your skin because it takes risks in the storytelling.
On rare occasions when a film has a particular poetic flavour, I’ll re-read my notes and take that as a synopsis:
A corner camera angle, looking through the front windscreen and side window of a car.
A snowy forest.
A little girl watches from her bedroom window.
Just the lower half of the face, a weirdly made-up face, a powdered face. A male’s high voice.
Strings screech.
Knock, knock.
Have you seen this man?
She’s quiet – he’s in there.
Half psychic.
Ciphers – ten families.
Making the father murder.
Like a tapping on the shoulder.
Highly intuitive.
14th: happy birthday.
911 call.
Flashes of crime scene photos.
Boiling black ink that overflows.
All your things.
Not nice things.
Our prayers protect us from the devil.
Newspaper clippings.
A life-sized doll.
A nowhere between here and there.
The man down the stairs.
From the perspective of the doll.
Looks right down the camera.
Birthday girls.
The doll maker.
You’ve won.
Happy birthday.
Creepy.